Belgian tourist trampled to death by elephant in Kenya

A Belgian tourist was trampled to death by an elephant near Kenya’s famed Maasai Mara wildlife reserve, police said Wednesday, the second such incident in a month. “He was badly injured by the rogue elephant and succumbed to injuries at the Talek Health Centre,” a police officer in the area said on condition of anonymity. The death of the Belgian man on Monday in circumstances that remain unclear comes a month after an Italian man was trampled in the Tsavo National Park, southeast Kenya, while trying to take a photograph of an elephant.

Kenyan daily The Standard reported that in a separate incident on Tuesday, a Kenyan secondary school student was killed by an elephant on the way to school. The Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) warned in a statement Wednesday that a fierce drought gripping the country was pushing wildlife further from their traditional habitats in search of food and water, increasingly bringing them into contact with humans. “From the cases recorded by KWS, it is evident that there has been an increase in reported incidents of conflicts compared to past years; the notable ones being attacks on people, property destruction, livestock predation and crop raiding,” said the statement. KWS warned that such interactions were likely to increase and urged caution in high-risk areas.